Tuesday, June 03, 2014

Taxpayer-funded Elderly Sex Changes Medicare-paid

President Obama's Department of Health and Human Services, headed by the godmother of ObamaCare, Kathleen Sebelius, has decided that all Americans should be forced to pay for sexual mutilation surgery of elderly patients suffering from gender confusion. Prior to the president's implementation of the Gay Agenda, such Medicare coverage was denied because sex change surgery was ruled "experimental and unsafe."

It should be noted that a person's DNA cannot be changed; biologically, there's no such thing as a "sex change."

Ruling in favor of [Denee Mallon] a 74-year-old Army veteran whose request to have Medicare pay for her[/his] genital reconstruction was denied two years ago, the agency’s Departmental Appeals Board ruled that a three-decade-old HHS rule excluding such surgeries from the procedures covered by the national health program for the elderly and disabled was unjustified.

Transgender health advocates said that because private insurance companies and state-run Medicaid programs that provide health insurance for low-income individuals often take their cue from the federal government on which treatments to approve or exclude, the decision could eventually pave the way for sex-reassignment surgeries to be a routinely covered benefit.

The appeals board’s decisions are binding on HHS unless they are appealed in federal court. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the agency within HHS that manages Medicare, opted not to defend the transgender surgery exclusion before the five-member board and had initiated the process for lifting it on its own before Mallon filed her[/his] complaint.

“This is a big, big decision; I’ve wanted the operation since I was probably 11 years old and knew about it,” said Denee Mallon, 74, an Army veteran from Albuquerque who was born male but has lived for many years as a woman and identifies as a woman.

Jennifer Levi, director of the Transgender Rights Project of Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, who filed the challenge on Ms. Mallon’s behalf, said the board had reviewed the safety and efficacy of sex reassignment surgery, closely examining the medical literature, including studies that followed people for a decade or more after surgery.

“The decision brings federal Medicare policy up to 21st-century standards for transgender people, and acknowledges that there’s no scientific or medical basis for categorically excluding coverage of sex reassignment surgery for people who need it,” Ms. Levi said.

Transsexual surgery, or sex reassignment surgery, refers to a series of procedures designed to change the anatomy of transsexuals to conform to their gender identity. The August 1989 blanket denial of coverage, which relied on the 1981 report, cited a lack of long-term studies on the safety and effectiveness of the procedures as a basis for the decision. The report also said transsexual surgery had a high rate of serious complications.

Physicians and clinical psychologists testifying for Mallon, some of whom had performed thousands of sex reassignment surgeries, said transsexual surgery had become the standard treatment for gender identity disorder, a diagnosed medical condition.

While transsexual surgery may not be appropriate in all cases of transsexualism, treatment needs should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, according to the experts.

The appeals board noted the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Service did not try to challenge its decision, which is final unless appealed in federal court.

Gender reassignment surgeries vary by type and scope. For men, they can involve castration and genital reconstruction. For women, they can involve mastectomy and the implantation of a prosthetic. The cost of transsexual surgeries range from $7,000 to $50,000, according to the Transgender Law Center in Oakland, Calif.

The ruling means individuals on Medicare who can provide documentation from doctors and mental health professionals stating that a surgical sex change is medically indicated for them can bill the government for the procedure. The government-run Medicare program provides healthcare for 49 million Americans.